Forgiven and free.

I recently had the profound privilege of praying with a beautiful lady who had been in an abusive relationship. She was looking for a fresh start and she came to us for prayer so as to not fall back into old ways. She was open about a repetitive habit of falling for the wrong kind of men. She craved love and physical touch and she had fallen for someone (possibly more than once) who had no real respect for her or her children. I don't know the details of what went on and I didn't need to, but what was evident at the time was a broken heart and a longing for real love. I don't like to think of what her boys may have seen or experienced.

My team and I prayed for her and it became evident that there was some kind of block. Things just weren't happening, and she was unable to get past something. I asked her if she needed to forgive herself. She nodded, we prayed through that and then we finished off by drawing a metaphorical line in the sand. She stepped across it and as she did, she left the guilt and shame she was carrying behind - stepping out of it like stepping out of a cape. As she did, she was able to picture God standing behind her and wrapping His arms around her. It was a gesture of love from the author of love himself. So good, so pure and the experience was hers to hold and to treasure. She was not exposed or shamed in that time, but rather covered and secure. God literally had her back. She was free to experience Father God himself, to invest in herself, in her boys and to receive hope for their collective future. Free to love not from a place of neediness and loneliness, but rather from a place of already being secure in the arms of the Father. A love beyond reason that sought her out that day.

I love how God moves in such extraordinary ways. And these kinds of encounters are available to us purely because of the price that Jesus paid on the cross. God's love was poured out with Jesus' blood on that day. Once and for all. We are truly dead to any power of sin in our lives.

Ephesians 3: 16-19

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Romans 6:6-11 NLT

And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.

1 Peter 4:8-10. TPT

Above all, constantly echo God’s intense love for one another, for love will be a canopy over a multitude of sins. Be compassionate to foreigners without complaining. Every believer has received grace gifts, so use them to serve one another as faithful stewards of the many-colored tapestry of God’s grace.

The lady we prayed for was not able to come into a new experience of the father and to forgive herself because of anything that was within her. God was in the details from the beginning of time, and her slate was wiped entirely clean by the work of Jesus on the Cross. She just needed to receive it; to believe it for herself and to choose the resurrection power and life that day over her own sin and shame. No more hiding from God or running into things to soothe the pain that weren't right for her. She was fully covered, loved, forgiven and free.